An introduction to educational psychology:
Session 1: Behaviorism
A branch of psychology concerned with the scientific
study of how people learn
Includes topics (teaching methods, individual
differences, instructional processes, learning
disabilities…)
Kaplan (1990):
The application of psychology to education by
focusing on the development, evaluation and
application of theories and principles of learning and
instruction with the aim of enhancing lifelong learning.
Learning vs Education
Learning is part of the process of education, but to be
truly educative it must give a broader value and meaning
to the learner’s life.
Example: Within the field of language teaching many
language tasks have little personal interest or relevance to
the learners.
Late 19th : EP was a discipline within natural
science and adopted scientific method
This led to conflict between:
Cognitive psychology: human psyche(
thought & emotion)
Positivist: observable behaviour
Logical positivism: Knowledge and facts exist within
the real world and can be discovered by setting up
experiments.
World is orderly, all natural phenomena have natural
causes.
They had an anti-mentalistic view (they rejected
studying mind or any unobservable phenomena).
Only empirical data were used as evidence.
The thoughts and feelings of humans are not accessible
to scientific investigation.
Pavlovian classical conditioning:
The repetition of the chain of stimulus-response leads to
learning. Learning process involves the formation of
associations between S-R (meat, bell, salivation)
Skinnerian operant conditioning:
What is important for learning to occur is not the
stimulus, but the reinforcers. If the behavior is reinforced
(rewarded or punished) then the likelihood of that
behavior occurring on a subsequent occasion will be
increased or decreased.
Positive reinforcement involves adding a reward to
increase behavior, like giving a child praise for
completing homework.
Negative reinforcement involves removing an
unpleasant stimulus to increase behavior, such as
allowing a student to skip quizes if they improve their
grades.
For behavior decrease, positive punishment adds an
unpleasant consequence, like giving extra tasks for
misbehavior while negative punishment removes a
privilege, like taking away screen time for not
following rules.
Operant conditioning can be effectively applied in
language learning through various methods:
Positive Reinforcement: Rewarding students with
praise or small incentives when they correctly use new
vocabulary or grammar structures. For example, a
teacher might give stickers for each new word a student
uses in conversation.
Negative Reinforcement: Removing a challenging
aspect of learning when a student shows improvement.
For instance, if a student consistently practices speaking
and becomes more fluent, the teacher might reduce the
frequency of error correction sessions.
Positive Punishment: Introducing a consequence for incorrect
usage, such as requiring extra practice if a student frequently
makes the same grammatical errors. This encourages them to
focus on improvement.
Negative Punishment: Taking away benefits , such as free time,
if students are not participating or completing assignments. This
motivates them to engage more in language activities.
Immediate Feedback: Providing instant feedback during
speaking or writing exercises reinforces correct usage and
clarifies mistakes, helping learners adjust their behavior in real-
time.
These applications help create a structured environment where
learners are motivated to practice and improve their language
skills.
